Unai Emery has called on his Aston Villa squad to stay positive and move forward after a crushing late defeat to Manchester City dented their Champions League qualification hopes.

Matheus Nunes struck in stoppage time to hand City a 2-1 win at the Etihad Stadium, after Bernardo Silva had opened the scoring early on.

Marcus Rashford equalised from the spot in the first half, continuing his fine form for Villa, but it wasn’t enough to secure a result.

The result sees Villa stay in seventh place, two points off the top five with four games remaining, and four adrift of City in third.

Speaking to Sky Sports after the match, Emery urged his players not to dwell on the result.

“We can't waste time, we lost in the last minute of this match, but we competed well. We were close to drawing,” he said.

“We were trying to win the match as well with our substitutes, but they do the same and they score.

“Over 90 minutes they dominated more, but we played a good competitive match.”

While acknowledging City had the upper hand overall, Emery stressed the importance of taking positives from the performance.

“I take a lot of positive things and now is a moment to be positive. I'm going to analyse the match and try get a lot of information from it," he added.

“We can't waste time now, we have to keep going.

“We want to try keep the level that we're achieving and try to be demanding in our way so we can build ourselves up, to be stronger in everything.

“Tomorrow, we will rest. Thursday and Friday, we'll be positive and work hard to prepare for the game against Crystal Palace.”

Villa will now turn their focus to the FA Cup semi-final against Palace on Saturday, before returning to Premier League action at home to Fulham the following weekend.